TF Trades 12/4 (Fri)

TF 15min

In at 588.5; scratch at 589.1

Like I did for all previous pre-market trades, I had set a sell limit order to cover position. Target was 593.

But as mentioned earlier, I was starting to feel uneasy about the trade. So I covered at ceiling of channel (bear flag?? bear wolfe???).

I was expecting to see a round bottom sort of formation (with price testing yesterday's low or pivot from the day before at around 586). So yes, I was stupid to have bought at 588.5. But buying at 586 would make me look like a bottom fisher (not that there's anything wrong with bottom fishing). Ok, I just didn't want to miss the ride should I fall asleep (which I had been doing for the entire week).

Unlike the previous occasion where I had bought a pseudo bull flag (price was hanging in mid-range, but there was a flag pole and a flag....), this time, I simply couldn't go take a nap after the order was filled.

Experience has taught me it's always good to walk away from trades that make me feel sick in the stomach. So I bailed.

And now I can take my nap.

AUDUSD position still open. My stop has not been hit, neither has my profit target. I'm starting to really not know what to do with it. I'm tempted to buy some more. We'll see.

WOLFE

TF 1min

Was just talking with Todd. He pointed out a bearish wolfe on Wed's chart, and I thought it'd be interesting to show just how common wolfe patterns are.

There's another bearish one from yesterday that hasn't touched the pink wolfe target line. I'm now really starting to worry about my long position.

Trades 12/3 (Thurs) & 12/4 (Fri)

FX trades from 12/3 (Thurs)

EURUSD 15min : + 29 pips

AUDUSD 15min: + 10 pips

Still holding on to 1 AUDUSD position.

TF Trade 12/4 (Fri)
Limit order pending

Apology

AUDUSD position's still opened. Price's not moving a great deal.

TF's really ugly - it's trading like the ES. I am definitely tempted to trade oil and bean for the rest of the year.

Got a call from an ex-colleague that I couldn't take coz I was in trade. Received many calls from ex-colleagues, friends here, and friends abroad in the past few months, and I hadn't been able to take their calls. I have so many calls to return I decided that I'll be fair and not call any of them. Had some time to log on to facebook and was appalled to see the number of messages from friends (I log on to facebook probably once in 3 months). Decided after that that I'd check my emails some other day. I have yet to return my sworn brother's call (he was expecting to catch up in HK). I just didn't know how to tell him that I wasn't visiting after all. He only knew that I cancelled my trip when I called to break the news to our friend who was getting married whose wedding I was supposed to attend.

Had some time (when I was out taking my nic break) to reflect on the way I'm treating people that I've known for years. It's not that I don't value them. I do. All of them. Which is what makes it so difficult. Most times I know that I'm a lucky woman - my friends don't seem to give up on me. And that makes me feel horribly guilty all the time. If I were to meet just one of them per day, it will take me 2 months to see all of them. I wonder, how do others manage? I can hardly find time to have dinner with my siblings! I asked D, and D said that unlike me, most people look forward to seeing other people. For me, I make it a point to see those who NEED me. To see anyone else is like a chore (any activity that requires my stepping out of my home is a chore - so yes, getting lunch everyday is a chore so I skip it most of the time). I like my friends, I love many of them dearly, but it's a feeling that I'm not desperate to express.

I am aware that I'm not sociable. I know too that fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with that. I just feel terribly sorry. I haven't any inkling if my friends are actually upset. I would be if I were to look up someone and he/she's never available. But then again, I'm not like everyone else. If I were, I wouldn't be trading.

I just want to say I'm sorry, Celeste, that I'm a terrible mother.

Trades 12/3 (Thurs)

Migraine's killing me and charts are making me puke. TF's looking really ugly for now. If I don't get better by the time market opens, will stay on the sideline.

FX:
EURUSD +29 pips
AUDUSD +10 pips
Still holding a AUDUSD position. Will post charts once position is closed.

Trades 12/2 (Wed) - Wrap Up

Total: + 1.2 Point

TF 1min

For the strangest reason, FED day ALWAYS clashes with my "Day 1".

But today's the FIRST of all the black Weds that my brain actually worked!

Well, it did start out a little cranky (which was apparent to D when I told him to SELL).

First trade was not exactly stopped out. I told D to flip. He wasn't fast enough. But, we'll get there.

Anyway, my initial plan was to stay on the sideline on crazy chart days like today, so I'll consider any gain a bonus / narrow escape.

Result for part 2 of the day: - 1.4, +1.9, +0.7 = + 1.2 TF Point

Trades 12/1 (Tues) & 12/2 (Wed) & SPA Saga

12/1 (Tues) US Session

TF 1min

Typical pre-FED day - tight range, undecided market, basically just an ugly chart until after 2pm. There was just 1 trade that I spotted. Gave D signal to enter (blue arrow), then had him cancel buy stop order. I just didn't think I had to resort to taking a crappy trade like that (wide stop; profit capped by 3rd touch on downsloping channel ceiling). I didn't want to short the market either, and decided to call it a day. D was only too happy. He had been wanting to SELL the whole time. So he faded every new peak in NQ:



12/2 (Wed) FX

Closed my EURUSD position (LONG) from last Friday. Result: -14 pips. I'm not sure what the pair wants to do anymore. I overstayed in the first place anyway (This chart shows my entry on Fri - Oanda's not showing that trade anymore...it probably keeps historical records for no more than 2 days?).

EURUSD 15min

Opened a AUDUSD position (LONG) that I didn't feel comfortable holding, and decided to let a breakeven stop take me out.

AUDUSD 15min

Opened a CADJPY position (LONG) to hedge my EURUSD trade and decided to let a breakeven stop take me out when the 2 started to converge.

CADJPY 15min

I think I just wanted to breakeven for the day.

And now I'm totally flat, and HAPPY. PnL for the week is USD 1300, so I'm going to stay out of a FED DAY.

BAD PEOPLE
I was having breakfast with D at our favorite haunt before he went to work this morning, when he received a call from the manager of a spa with which I am a member ( a 2007 Christmas gift from D - a 12k lifetime membership which he paid 8k for with cash - yes, the 4k bonus was for his generosity). His boss had run away. D broke the news to me, expecting some sort of reaction. But I continued to drink my ice coffee, and gave him a devilish grin seconds later. It's nasty, but definitely better than the "I-TOLD-YOU-SO" expression which always irritates the 2 of us.

Truth was, I was taken aback when I received the gift. But being the ever angelic partner that I was (ok, that's totally fabricated), I forced a grateful smile and said "thank-you". The following day, I asked Seabloke if she could sell the membership on ebay for me, since she's an ebay member. No luck. What was I even thinking - the market just crashed!

So Seabloke and I decided we'd go for a nice massage SOME DAY. The day never came of course. First, I can't be massaged. Second, I can't leave my workstation for even a day. Third, I can't spend a day at a spa - I'll go completely crazy.

It's been exactly 24 months since I received the membership card and I've never once stepped into the spa. And I've completely forgotten about selling the card when our economy turned around.

So there goes D's 8k. I'm just glad he hadn't used credit (I read on the Singapore's Straits Times that there were those who paid for the membership with their credit cards, and it looks like they will still have to continue to pay their installments....).

I told D to go to our small court tribunal. I would rather give the 8K to charity than to people who ran away without paying their employees!

A brief description of the case I found on the net:
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/cna/20091109/tap-097-has-wellness-village-spa-left-cu-231650b.html

TF Trades 12/1 (Tues) & FX Trades

TF 15 min

Total: + 4.9 Points

Last TF trade was a solo trade (D's at work in his office). I love trading with D - I get a real kick out of driving him up the wall. But his tendency to flee drives me crazy. So, we are even.

This is the last time that the account below will be used to trade TF. New account for TF trading has been funded (forcing me to hedge the amount by selling USD and buying SGD) and we'll be using that instead. This account here will be for ETF trading (daytrading and swing trading) only:

FX

EURUSD 3Hr

AUDUSD 3Hr

All FX positions still opened. All profits in pips.
Leverage: 8 to 1 on 12k.

Update:
AUDUSD position closed:

+73 pips

2 EURUSD positions closed:

+84 pips

2010

HK trip cancelled last minute.

Trading resumes.

I'll be focusing on 2 instruments for daytrading. I'll trade FX exclusively during the daytime (my daytime), using 2:1 leverage, and a max of 6:1. Once US market opens, I will trade TF exclusively. I've opened a separate account with IB to trade TF only. Contract size per trade will vary.

ETFs - this will be traded on the original account and most will be daytrades. Will take longer-term trades whenever I see opportunities on daily charts.

This is what 2010's looking like for me for now:

1) Car - selling my 5-year-old love (D says it's TOO OLD - in Singapore, a 5-year-old car is old enough to be scrapped....doesn't matter that mine is a turbo brick with an average life span of 20 years), and getting D's favorite.

2) Mortgage - getting a place for D's mum who's leaving LA to join us next year. I'm used to owning my home. As a matter of fact, I like to OWN everything I use/have. I hate credits. I hate mortgages. Basically, I just utterly hate debts. But I like D's mum. So I shall try to like the mortgage bit.

3) Friends - I'm projecting ZERO left. D's my only friend. The 2 years that I spent in my cave have made me realized that I'm a born loner. Only D can put up with someone who spends 90% of her time in her own head. For the first time in my life, I'm going to be friendless, coz I simply have no time for friends next year.

4) Learning - I've read some really good books in the past few days, and realized how much I've missed just lying on my bed or on the settee by the window reading things that are not trading-related. I MUST MUST MUST set aside time to pick up spanish and to play the piano that is starting to become another white elephant in my home.

5) Kids - NONE. Adamant. The world had better really end in 2012 this time.

TF & ETF Trades 11/27 (Fri)

TF 1min

D and I entered into this arrangement with ONE rule that we promised to observe: I give him the entry and profit target, he executes the trade which includes getting in and getting out based on what the tape and the other indices are doing.

I broke that one single rule and asked to take over everything. Bad news was, my chart and IB's BookTrader went out of sync like 70% of the time, and I missed our 580 exit (2 points away from our entry at 578) when I was focusing on my chart at the wrong time (when Booktrader was FASTER than my chart). I ended up having to scratch the trade at +2 ticks.

D was super pissed.

Anyway, I got us a second entry, and this time, D executed the trade and covered where I told him to.

1.3 points, plus a little in ETFs. $190 to end a short trading session. Happy ending! Ha.

No trades from yesterday. TF had a really short session (ICE closed at 10:30am ET) and I didn't bother.

USDJPY Trades 11/27 (Fri)

USDJPY 1min

USDJPY 15min

Total: +43 pips

The last trade was tormenting. I had a hunch the pair would make it to my trendline target, so I decided to put up with that extremely long sideway move. When the smallest candles were forming, I literally felt like throwing up and couldn't get out of my chair coz I was fainting. I lost sensation in my fingers, and kept asking D for water that I didn't really need (coz I was really wanting to puke). Once the market started moving again an hour later, I totally recovered from what felt almost like morning sickness. I have no idea still what that was about.

I haven't the time to wait for price to hit trendline (who knows what route it's going to take to get there!) and covered when bull candles started to weaken again at the peak.

I finally figured out where that hunch came from. It was from a 600 bucks lesson (lost 1k in 1 trade, took back 400 in several scalps) from months ago. 6J just kept going up regardless of all the bearish candles that formed along the way. Lower lows and lower highs formed within what I understood later to be corrective waves - all part of a healthy uptrend.

Time to visit Little one.

Scums!!!

My 6-year-old niece (the older twin) fell today during an ice skating trip organized by her school.

The teacher in charged called Seabloke to inform her of the fall.

Seabloke's instruction was for Little One to be sent to the clinic immediately - she was getting into her car but it would take her a good half hour to reach the ice-skating ring.

When Seabloke arrived an hour later (she was caught in a bad traffic jam), little one was sitting all by herself, BLOOD DRIPPING FROM HER CHIN. She had bleed for an hour and the school decided she could wait for her mother to take her to the clinic since they DIDN'T HAVE HER PARTICULARS (so if someone that's gravely hurt and unconscious can't be identified, doctors leave them to die???! Was that what the teachers assume?? Are they even educated???!! Or are they just - borrowing from J's favorite description of anyone worthlessly slothful - CRIMINALLY LAZY??? ).

Little one was hurting, scared, cold, and hungry and left alone, and there was absolutely NOTHING done for her to stop the bleeding - no gauze, no napkins, NOTHING!!!! The sandwich that Seabloke had packed for her was half eaten, as the rest was SOAKED IN BLOOD dripped from her chin while she was eating!

I have no words to describe the pain I feel. Seabloke must have felt a hundred times worse! She had on a previous occasion gone to the site of one of their excursions to check out on her daughters and the teachers expressed their displeasure. So to avoid putting little ones on the spot, Seabloke decided to trust the teachers/school this time.

To her utter disgust and horror, she saw that her trust had been seriously misplaced. The kids were all WITHOUT protective gears, and there was only 1 instructor watching over 20 kids that were skating among many other kids! When Seabloke got to the place, the principal and the other teachers were sitting somewhere nearby watching my niece bleed for an hour!!!

This is Singapore, my hometown. I love the way the country is run. I even like our leaders. But I have to say, I seriously fucking hate the ROBOTS/COLD-BLOODED human beings that populate this island.

"Operational Net Assessment"

"What I heard is that Blue Team had all these long discussions," Van Riper says. "They were trying to decide what the political situation was like. They had charts with up arrows and down arrows. I remember thinking, Wait a minute. You were doing that while you were fighting? They had all these acronyms. The elements of national power were diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. That gives you DIME. They would always talk about the Blue DIME. Then there were the political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information instruments, PMESI. So they'd have these terrible conversations where it would be our DIME versus their PEMSI. I wanted to gag. What are you talking about? You know, you get caught up in forms, in matrixes, in computer programs, and it just draws you in. They were so focused on the mechanics and the process that they never looked at the problem holistically. In the act of tearing something apart, you lose its meaning."

Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink" Pg 124-125

TF Trade 11/25 (Wed)

TF 1min

TF : + 1.1 Point

Great reset.

D got home really late. US session had begun, and we were having dinner and catching a movie. Well, D was watching the movie. I was busy making notes. It was good that D wasn't paying attention to the market. I had all the time I needed to let market make its move before I made mine.

The best part: D was finally willing to exit where I wanted him to. No more running after 3 ticks. GIRL POWER.

Done for today. We are both tired.

EURUSD Trades (Update) 11/25 (Wed) & Regarding Daily Posting of PnL

EURUSD 1min (Part 1): + 13 pips

EURUSD 1min (Part 2) : + 16pips

EURUSD 15min
Total: +29 pips

EURUSD 15min (The Big Picture)

It kills me to trade 10k size, aiming for 70 to 90 pips each time. HOURS of sitting in front of my screen waiting for profit target to be hit is agonizing. Almost as bad as - if not worse than - sitting on a loss.

I love leverage. I wish I'll really think it's bad. But I don't. I think leverage is revitalizing. ETF and 10k FX trading has been sucking the life out of me. I'm dying a slow death.

I'm moving to full size lots. This will be on days when I can't trade the 6E (coz of ugly charts, my ugly moods, etc).

Day 3 trading TF with D turned out to be a total disaster. We drove each other nuts. I stonewalled him, and he went to bed REALLY pissed. Day 4 (yesterday) was GOOD, coz we traded separately. Ha Ha.

But, I'm still keen to work with him, coz I know that the results will be impressive. I am good at thin-slicing the market which allows me to spot good trades quickly, and D's good at executing them.

We'll see.

Will be posting PnL. Based on months of observation, I notice there's no difference in my performance patterns OVERTIME whenever I had stopped reporting.

I will not be trading everyday. I will if the market allows. If it's not my kind of market, I'll stay away.

I will no longer explain my trades, or justify my wins & losses.

I will post charts that are worth posting.

I will be turning comments off in my next post.

EURUSD Trades 11/23 (Mon)

EURUSD 1min

EURUSD 15min

It has never occurred to me to trade directly on Oanda's chart until today. It was nice...moving stops was a breeze. I traded on the 1min timeframe, but planning was done on TOS' 15 min chart and on Sierra's 6E 15min (charts right at the end of this post). Oanda doesn't give me enough candles/bars to see patterns.

I was short initially. Just wanted to take some scalps while waiting for something that I can recognize to develope. Was stopped out on both scalps (after failing to take scalp profits....I forgot that I was scalping...). The level that I was stopped out at confirmed a long entry, so I flipped and took a quasi-swing LONG (I did hold profit for hours). I learned my 1k lesson.

Seabloke and Gremlins came to visit and spent the whole time watching me manage my trade. But my charts no longer interest little ones and they were BORED to tears. I promise no trading the next time they visit - and that will be this Wed. Wed is a CURSE for me anyway....Gremlins' hundredth visit should break the curse. Hmmm.....

Today's result (Oanda charts above show my entries & exits):
-9pips (short)
-5pips (short)
+ 75 pips (long)
Net: +61 pips

I'll be trading only FX during globex hours and will be focusing on EURUSD.

10k lots for now, and will move up to 100k whenever I feel comfortable enough with Oanda to use leverage.

Will be posting all my FX trades.

EURUSD 15min

6E 15min

TF 11/20 (Fri)

TF 1min

Day 2.

Day 1 (Thurs) was NOT good. D took calls from his office, from his mum, and couldn't stop checking his blackberry, and his office laptop for emails. Extremely frustrating for me coz I like QUIET, FULL COMMITMENT & COOPERATION and UNDIVIDED ATTENTION.

Day 2 was better, albeit a tad comical. D was argumentative (D's always right...). We got our entries, but none of the targeted profits. D was extremely reluctant to stay in trade and would run with his few ticks each time. Drives me nuts.

Will keep doing this during US session.

Am still trading 6E during globex hours, but will slowly switch to Forex.

Jules Is A Mule (Part 3??!)

6E 15min

Yesterday was an interesting day - not just because I gave away 1k in a single trade again - so thought I'll talk about it.

I Shorted the 6E rather early in the morning (my morning and around 8pm NY time) coz, well, I was convinced 6E was going back down to test the spike low (see chart above). As with other days that I refused to think straight, I held on to the trade until I realized I couldn't be sure if price was going to stop going against me before the day ended. And as with all those other days that I was convinced that price would go to a certain place, price eventually did start going in my direction, or totally hit my target, either a few hours after my exit or 24 hours later.

All these days had been Wednesdays.

After I cut my loss, I had gone into my personal library to dig out some material I came across before, and to take a closer look at something that I never really took into account when I trade the futures: market participants (who they are - farmers/merchants/banks, speculators, hedge fund managers etc, and WHEN they operate).

My hypothesis about why the chart did what it did and why I kept hanging on to my biased view was confirmed when I traded the TF later in the evening (US morning of course) - when a wolfe pattern failed during lunch hour (learning very quickly from my 6E experience just hours before, I told D to refrain from buying a breakout - which is needed for price to get to wolfe target).

In any case, a hard stop would have saved me from myself. I had a lot of conviction, which was why I didn't want a stop to get in the way (what an irony). Extremely stupid, looking back. But then of course everything always appears obvious with the benefit of hindsight. It takes a hell lot of discipline and UNCOMMON SENSE to immediately recognize and stop a stupid act that's about to happen. I have neither discipline nor uncommon sense.

But I have an endless supply of energy. Maybe that's exactly what makes things worse. Instead of taking a hiatus after that 1k loss (6J took it!) from 2 weeks ago, I went right back to work after a 2-day break....

And after yesterday's 1k blunder, I went right back in to intervene in D's trading.

I had started off by telling D I would stop trading altogether for a while, and share with him about Wolfe Waves instead. After US market opened, D traded the account, taking his usual 1 to 3 ticks (since I said I wouldn't trade) before I spotted the wolfe pattern.

When I told him to go long at 595, he hesitated but went with it anyway. BUT he got out after 3 ticks instead of holding and moving his stops til we see the 3rd target (see chart below). When TF hit 600 in a parabolic move up, he blamed himself for not having persuaded me to take the trade myself.

As if things hadn't been bad enough up to that point, D had to sell at a place that I would buy, after TF pulled back from 600.

I hit the bid column on booktrader, covering his short.

D yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!!" (I know, someone who has lost 1k just moments ago really shouldn't be meddling in the trade of another who has a record of zero to one losing day out of 20 on average) .

I was stunned, but only for seconds. Then I hit bid once more to get in on a long trade, at 3 ticks higher than where I had covered D's short (where I covered his short was exactly where I had wanted to go long - in other words, I had wanted to flip his trade - but D shocked me, and I was late hitting bid a second time as a result).

After I covered my long at +9 ticks, D thanked me for stopping his short at minimal damage, and for the rest of the day, we were in consultative mode (until I went in for my shower when D quietly took some "lunch time" trades).

It was fun - trading with D. And we might just do it again. I'm tempted to let D execute all the trades I identify. D doesn't lift stops - which means I can say goodbye to 2.5% drawdowns in a single trade forever.

On TWS - Red arrow shows where D entered on wolfe pattern, Blue arrow shows D's short that that I covered, Green arrow shows where I went long after covering D's short

TF 1min (my apologies for the blur - program was going to shut down, and I hadn't saved the chart, so needed to do a capture immediately - click to get a better view)

D's 3-Tick Rule (Update)

Target of 598.3, 599.5 and 600 hit!

D's crying. HAHAHAHA!!!

Chart above shows Wolfe pattern from yesterday (include price from the day before).

D's 3-Tick Rule

TF 1 min

Was teaching D to trade a Wolfe pattern that I learned from Todd. Told D to buy at 595 (blue arrow), and place a 3 tick stop. Target was anywhere along target line. I projected 598.3, 599.5 and 600.

D took 3 ticks and happily exited.

Sigh.

WASTED.

There was a wolfe pattern yesterday too. Will post later. But find your own first just for the fun of it.

For the record, D has only 1 losing day since beginning of the month. So, maybe his 3-tick rule isn't so bad after all. Ha ha.